my country's wind power development may enter the "double-speed" stage

At the "2020 Beijing International Wind Energy Conference and Exhibition" held recently, representatives of more than 400 wind energy companies jointly issued the "Wind Energy Beijing Declaration", which once drove the collective rise of the wind power sector.

According to the carbon neutrality goal proposed by my country, this declaration proposes that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, it is necessary to ensure that the annual installed capacity of wind power is more than 50 million kilowatts, and by 2060, the installed capacity of wind power will reach at least 3 billion kilowatts. Compared with the annual installed capacity of my country's wind power during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, if the goals set out in the declaration are achieved, it means that my country's wind power development will enter the "double-speed" stage. What is the basis for this goal proposed by the industry? Is the wind power industry chain ready? The reporter interviewed a number of industry insiders.

Comprehensive energy and smart energy become the development direction

As a green energy, wind power is an important direction for the global green and low-carbon transformation. After 30 years of development, it has become an important force in promoting global energy transformation. Especially since 2020, under the background of the new crown pneumonia epidemic sweeping the world, my country's wind power development has maintained a "steady expansion" trend, and the installed capacity has continued to grow.

"From January to August this year, the new grid-connected capacity of my country's wind power exceeded 10 million kilowatts, and the total installed capacity exceeded 220 million kilowatts, ranking first in the world." Ren Yuzhi, deputy director of the New Energy and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Administration, attended the meeting. indicated above.

At the same time, my country's wind power utilization level has been further improved, wind power investment has strongly supported stable investment growth, and the wind power layout has been continuously optimized.

According to Ren Yuzhi, from January to August this year, the national wind power generation increased by 14.5% year-on-year; the wind power utilization rate reached 97%, a year-on-year increase of 1 percentage point; the investment in new grid-connected wind power has exceeded 80 billion yuan. From the perspective of the spatial distribution of wind power, the newly installed capacity in the Three North Regions is the same as that in the central, eastern and southern regions, and the layout of wind power is further balanced and optimized.

In addition, the reporter learned from the meeting that technologies such as intelligent robots, remote monitoring platforms, and big data mining and diagnosis are being widely used in current wind power products, and the operation and maintenance of wind power is also moving towards "unmanned and few people on duty". The promotion and application of new technologies and new models has led to a rapid increase in the efficiency of wind power generation and a continuous reduction in costs.

Zhang Lei, CEO of Envision Technology Group, told reporters that in many areas in the Three Norths, the wind power cost of Envision Technology Group has dropped to about 1.6 per cent. The long-term plan is to reduce the cost of wind power and energy storage on the power generation side to 1 cent by 2023. That is, the cost per kilowatt-hour of "stable wind power" is reduced to 20 cents after the "wind power + energy storage" model is used to avoid volatility defects.

"The promotion and application of the Internet of Things and digital twin technology is the key to driving down the cost of wind power." Wang Xiaoyu, vice president and chief technology officer of Envision Energy Co., Ltd., told reporters that Envision's super-sensing technology allows each wind turbine to be customized according to specific requirements. working conditions, optimized load distribution. In the future, the service life of wind turbines will exceed the current 20-year time limit, or even exceed 30 years, and achieve power generation efficiency optimization in a longer operating life cycle, and continue to drive down the cost of electricity.

At this exhibition, many wind power companies, including Envision, Goldwind Technology, and United Power, have released the latest intelligent wind power products. Just two days before the opening of the exhibition, the first wind turbine of the SPIC Jiangsu Binhai South H3 offshore wind power project was successfully connected to the grid, marking the first digital and intelligent offshore wind farm in China to enter the grid-connected operation stage.

According to industry insiders, my country's wind power is fully entering the era of parity, and technological innovation represented by intelligence is becoming a must for wind power to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

"Wind power companies should develop in the direction of comprehensive energy and smart energy, which is the guarantee for the future development of the industry." said Shi Dinghuan, director of the China Renewable Energy Society.

More efforts will be made to promote the large-scale development of wind power

my country proposes that carbon dioxide emissions should reach their peak before 2030, and strive to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

Industry insiders believe that the proposal of this goal will make the domestic zero-carbon development move from "discussion problem" to "mathematical problem", and the next step is to determine the development goals of each region and each time period.

"Each province and every enterprise must formulate its own carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals based on the carbon neutrality schedule proposed by my country," said Li Junfeng, chairman of the Renewable Energy Professional Committee of the China Energy Research Association.

In fact, the reporter learned from the meeting that many relevant business leaders and industry analysts have started to calculate the annual electricity demand of renewable energy in the next 10 to 40 years according to the carbon neutrality timetable proposed by my country. Formulate the next development plan.

Zhang Lei is one of them. He believes that to achieve the carbon neutrality goal of 2060, my country's electricity demand will be more than three times the current level by 2060, and it is expected to exceed 20 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity, which will be mainly supplied by renewable energy power generation. If calculated according to the annual power generation of 2000 hours, there will be about 10 billion kilowatts of new energy installed capacity. In the next 40 years, the average annual new installed capacity of renewable energy will reach more than 200 million kilowatts.

According to the reporter's understanding, for the average annual new installed capacity of renewable energy in the next 40 years, some people in the industry estimate that it will be about 100 million kilowatts. Based on different assumptions, the forecast results in the industry vary greatly.

The "Beijing Declaration on Wind Energy" proposes that in order to achieve the goal of achieving the initial connection with the carbon neutrality goal, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, it is necessary to ensure that the average annual installed capacity of wind power is more than 50 million kilowatts. After 2025, the average annual new installed capacity of wind power in China should be no less than 60 million kilowatts, at least 800 million kilowatts by 2030, and at least 3 billion kilowatts by 2060.

According to national energy data, in 2019, the new grid-connected installed capacity of wind power in the country was only 25.74 million kilowatts. As of the first half of 2020, the cumulative installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaic power generation nationwide was 217 million kilowatts and 216 million kilowatts, respectively.

Referring to the above data, if the goals set out in the declaration are achieved, it means that my country's wind power installations will soon enter the "double-speed" stage, which is undoubtedly a great benefit for the wind power industry chain that is still in the rush to install.

Taking wind tower manufacturing as an example, "wind tower manufacturing has obvious economies of scale. After the company's output increases, the cost will drop rapidly, improving profitability and competitiveness." Guosen Securities analyst Wang Weiqi said.

So, does the annual target of 50 million kilowatts of new wind power installed in the declaration conform to the current situation of wind power development? This is related to whether this goal can be finally achieved.

According to this declaration, the technological development potential of global wind energy resources is about 40 times that of the current global electricity demand. At the current level of technology, the wind energy resource reserves in the three northern regions alone exceed 4 billion kilowatts. Through local consumption and cross-regional balance, the lowest-cost power supply can be provided; while the wind energy resource reserves in the southeast and the Middle East are nearly 1 billion kilowatts; and in the future In the next five years, offshore wind power will be able to achieve large-scale and affordable development.

In other words, the declaration believes that my country's huge wind energy reserves can provide reliable resource support for the 50 million kilowatts of installed capacity per year in the future.

"There is no ceiling for China's wind power and photovoltaic technology development." Wang Yang, a senior engineer at the National Climate Center, said that by 2050, if the wind power installed capacity is 2.5 billion kilowatts and the photovoltaic installed capacity is 2.67 billion kilowatts, according to the national hourly wind power generation and demand-side power generation Interactive balance, without energy storage and demand-side response, only relying on wind and solar can provide 67% of the country's electricity demand, while the rate of abandoning wind and solar is less than 8%.

"Currently, we are organizing the preparation of the '14th Five-Year' plan for the development of renewable energy. Combined with the medium and long-term goals of addressing climate change, we will vigorously promote the high-proportion and high-quality development of new energy and renewable energy. Preliminary consideration, more efforts will be made to promote Large-scale development of wind power." Ren Yuzhi said.

To meet the "double-speed" development, there are still multiple challenges

The accelerated large-scale development of wind power is certainly gratifying for the industry, but challenges and pressures cannot be underestimated.

"As a wind power developer, under the new situation, our development method must be adjusted." Zhang Binquan, deputy general manager of Longyuan Power Group Co., Ltd., said that after the increase in the proportion of renewable energy such as wind and solar power on the grid in the future, the power grid's capacity to absorb Whether it can keep up with it, there is still great uncertainty. Power curtailment transactions and intensified competition in electricity prices may force companies to re-examine the investment value of some projects.

Ma Suoming, investment and development director of Beijing Enterprises Clean Energy Group Co., Ltd. believes that in the new round of renewable energy development, all parties must make good plans, and local governments, relevant government departments, and enterprises themselves must do a good job of planning with power grid planning. Connected to avoid the problem of high curtailment rate caused by the disconnection between new energy planning and power grid planning.

In addition, industry insiders believe that the larger scale of wind power will be launched, and the requirements for the reliability and power performance of wind power equipment will be greatly improved, which will place higher requirements on equipment suppliers.

"After years of rapid development of wind power, no uniform standard has been established in terms of equipment failure rates," said Zhang Binquan.

It is understood that compared with thermal power, hydropower, power grid, etc., the wind power industry has a relatively short development time and lags behind in the construction of the industry standard system.

"In the critical period to meet the next round of great development, we should sort out the experience and lessons of past wind power development and summarize some standards to ensure our sustainable development in the future." Ma Suoming suggested.

Shi Dinghuan believes that in addition to meeting the domestic power demand, wind power enterprises should also actively explore the international market. To improve the international competitiveness of my country's wind power enterprises, there is still a lot of work to be done. For example, some basic raw materials and key technologies have not yet passed the test. There is still a big gap in the level of operation, and the work of technological innovation cannot be relaxed.

In this regard, Ren Yuzhi said that the National Energy Administration will make greater efforts to promote the progress of wind power technology and industrial upgrading. Increase the efforts to "make up for shortcomings" in the manufacturing technology of key components such as wind power main bearings and blade materials, and promote the construction of an industrial system and manufacturing capacity that is suitable for the large-scale development of wind power.

In the later stage of operation and maintenance, Lu Yichuan, vice president of Concord New Energy Group Co., Ltd., admitted that this year's rush to install wind power has exposed the insufficiency of my country's wind power operation and maintenance service capabilities. This problem may become more and more acute as the industry accelerates its large-scale development in the future.

"Too many cars are sold, and there are inevitably not enough people in the 4S store." He analogized that in the period of large-scale development of wind power, it is necessary to enhance the service capabilities of OEMs, strengthen the training of operation and maintenance talents, and ensure that the operation and maintenance service capabilities are consistent with The pace of development of the industry matches.